The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame

The adventures of four amiable animals, Rat, Toad, Mole and Badger, along a river in the English countryside.

I'm not keen on classics (might have something to do with the writing styles in most!) to be honest, but I'm in a few reading groups on facebook where classics are always bought up. Which is what led me to giving this a go, since I'd never read it before now.

This, atleast, was enjoyable especially reading about the antics of Mr Toad and the adventuresof him, Mole, Ratty and Badger! It was a fun, lighthearted read.

I haven't changed my mind about classics but atleast I can say I've read one.

Its such an odd book really, the way it swings between pastoral peace and Toad's shenanigans. But the prose is so lovely.

“Under severe compulsion from Badger, even the barge woman was, with some trouble, sought out and the value of her horse discreetly made good to her; though Toad kicked terribly at this, holding himself to be an instrument of Fate, sent to punish fat women with mottled arms who couldn't tell a real gentleman when they saw one.”

Lol that's one of the last paragraphs in the books ending. It was disturbing the amount of misogynistic shit for a children's book. And not me minding myself over the reviews of people saying “this is my son's favorite book” or “my father read this to me as a kid” yeah yeah, I wonder why the prevalence of men reading/enjoying this one.

A world where the lower class are shat on and women are scum. Awesome!